Swamped after nearly a week

Walking about:

My eyes are so tired with the continual negotiation of inter-personal positioning on the pavements/roads on my daily walks/shopping trips.

 

As you can imagine, I was naturally pleased but surprised to realise that, while not widely reported in the media, it turns out that the young (20s/30s) confident middle-classes have built up their immunity to COVID-19 and no longer need to worry about social distancing. They are again able to confidently walk along pavements and pathways in large groups in close proximity – unless of course they live in HMOs or large extended households(?)

 

Work:

I’m speeding through work in that way that I sometimes have in a dream where I’m travelling much faster than is comfortable (perhaps running down a hill or in a boat) and, while I never crash, it is both nerve-racking and exhilarating. In some ways, having to rely more on audio conversation puts me at an advantage, but the need for speedy transition from one video chat software platform to another is exhausting.

 

Social distancing:

Two metres separation is too far for me to see people’s faces, I can’t even see that people have got faces from that distance. When my partner and I met up for our daily walk yesterday, I took a photo of her on my phone to remind me of her face. While I can’t see facial expressions from any distance, the loss of the existence of a face and the possibility of touch are very difficult to accommodate and I hope they will remain so – it would be awful to become used to it.

 

WhatsApp:

I am involved in at least four active WhatsApp groups, each of which has clear value to me in terms of forging and maintaining connections with colleagues and neighbours, sharing shopping trips and getting/offering help on my street, staying in touch with close friends… But the downside is that I can often feel like I’m drowning in the sheer volume and speed of messages that constantly pour in, it is impossible to keep up with them all.

 

For example, I’m writing a response to one message and in that time, another four have come in to supersede my comment/question/offer. I have no sense of compulsion to respond to all the messages, but I can miss useful information that gets lost up the trails and it’s often easier to give up or mute the alerts to give myself a break.

 

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